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What I Learned Fighting Poverty in Little Rock

It was 1964 and I was a liberal confident that society could be greatly improved by large infusions of money.

By

Joseph Epstein

Jan. 17, 2014 7:14 p.m. ET

With all the talk currently being bruited about the 50th anniversary of the war on poverty, I am reminded that for a year, between 1964 and 1965, I was the director of the antipoverty program of Pulaski County, Ark., which included Little Rock, the adjoining city of North Little Rock and the surrounding rural area. I was then 27 years old, appropriately left-wing, and confident that society could be greatly improved with the help of large infusions of money and the serious thinking of people like myself.